When the news first reached him that the troops sent ostensibly to besiege La Rochelle were recalled, Conde, alarmed by what he heard from every quarter, had begged his mother-in-law, the Marchioness de Rothelin, to go to the court and entreat the king, in his name, to maintain the sanctity of his engagements, confirmed by repeated oaths. Scarcely had she departed, however, before he received fresh and reiterated warnings that his safety depended upon instant escape. He determined, nevertheless, to make a last attempt to avert the horrid prospect of a war which, from the malignant hatred exhibited by all classes of Roman Catholics, he rightly judged would exceed the previous contests both in duration and in destructiveness. He addressed to his young sovereign a letter explaining the necessity of the step he was about to take, accompanied by a long appeal, of which it would be impracticable to give even a brief summary. Every point in the multitudinous grievances of which the Huguenots complained was recapitulated. Every counter-charge with which the court had endeavored to parry the force of previous remonstrances was satisfactorily answered. In eloquent terms the prince indicted Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine, as the enemy alike of the royal dignity and of the liberties of the people, as the author of all the troubles of France, and the advocate and defender of robbers and murderers.[579] He reminded the king of the declaration of Maximilian, the present Emperor of Germany, in a letter written before his election to Charles himself: "All the wars and all the dissensions that are to-day rife among the Christians have originated from two cardinals--Granvelle and Lorraine."[580] And he closed the long and eloquent document by protesting, in the sight of God and of all foreign nations, that the Huguenot nobles sought the punishment of Lorraine and his associates alone, as the guilty causes of all the calamities that portended destruction to the French crown, and would pursue them as perjured violators of the public faith and capital enemies of peace and tranquillity. He therefore hoped that no one would be astonished if he and his allies should henceforth refuse to receive as the king's commands anything that might be decided upon by the royal council, so long as the cardinal might be present at its sessions, but should regard them as fabrications of the cardinal and his fellows. The causes of the misfortunes that might arise must be attributed, not to himself and his Huguenot allies, but to the cardinal and his Roman Catholic confederates.[581] [Sidenote: The flight of the prince and the admiral.] [Sidenote: Proves wonderfully successful.]